Amy C Walters

The Parable of the Prodigal Son | Luke 15:11-32

The Parable of the Prodigal Son would have had a happy ending if the older son wasn’t in it. Instead, it’s left hanging with the older son staying outside the party while the father pleads with him to come in. The story presents us with a question: will we let go of our own goodness to join in the feast?

If Hollywood had scripted the parable of the Prodigal Son, it would have ended with the big feast celebrating the younger son’s return. But this is not the Hollywood version. This is Jesus’ parable and he has more to say.

He tells about an older brother who is an absolute wet blanket to this celebration. Why would Jesus ruin the great ending of this story by including him? 

Before this parable, in Luke 15:1-2, it says, “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them.’” Tax collectors and sinners belong in one group–the religious outsiders. But the Pharisees and the scribes are the religious insiders. And they believe that they belong with Jesus and the outsiders do not. So Jesus tells this parable as an answer to the Pharisees and scribes. 

This parable is setting up a comparison between the older brother and the younger brother. The older brother is off in the fields when the younger brother comes home. And so when the older brother comes near the house and hears the sound of music and feasting, he calls a servant and asks, “What’s going on?” And the servant says, “Your brother has come and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.”

How does the older brother respond to this? He’s angry. He refuses to go to the party. So the father goes out to him. Notice a point of similarity: the father goes out to both of his sons. He bridges the distance. He initiates the contact. 

The father pleads with the older son to join the party, but the older brother refuses. He begins by saying, “Look.” Now, this is rude. He’s not addressing his father with respect.

He goes on to say, “All these years I have slaved for you and never disobeyed your orders.” The older son refers to his work on his father’s estate as “slaving.” He does it begrudgingly.

He also says, “I never disobeyed your orders.” Isn’t that interesting? Do you think it’s possible for a son to never disobey their father? In fact, what about this very moment when the father has come out to plead with him to come into the party and the older son is refusing? That’s disobedience right there.

The older son is blind to his own shortcomings, refusing to acknowledge that he himself has not been the perfect son, that he himself has already received so much more than he deserves. 

Instead, he thinks he deserves more. He goes on to say, “You’ve never given me even a young goat so that I could celebrate with my friends.” He thinks that what he has received from the father is not enough. The older son’s attitude is, “Look at all I’ve done for you. You owe me.” 

He goes on to compare himself to the other brother. “You never gave me a young goat to celebrate with my friends, but this son of yours…” So notice it’s not “my brother.” It’s “this son of yours.” He’s distancing himself from his brother. 

“This son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, and you kill the fattened calf for him.” There’s a big emphasis in this story on killing the fattened calf. It comes up three times. The older son brings it up because he is upset at the expense the father has gone to to celebrate his younger brother. It’s like he’s saying, “Don’t spend my future inheritance on that sinner.” 

What does this tell us about the older son? Clearly he’s arrogant. He thinks that he has obeyed his father perfectly. He thinks that the father owes him for all the work that he’s done.

So the father responds to him, “You are always with me, and everything I have is yours.” So while the older brother is saying, “you owe me,” the father is saying, “everything I have is yours. You will receive all of this. Not because of the work that you have done, but because you are my son.”

The older brother is convinced of his own righteousness and feels like the father owes him something. And that is what’s keeping him out of the party. 

Tim Keller points out the sad irony of this story: the sinner is the one who goes into the feast.  But the one who has been good and stayed home and done all the right things, he’s left out. And he’s left out because he’s done all those right things, because that is what he is basing his entrance into that party on. 

Moral performance, Tim Keller says,  is one of the ways that people try to control God and get things from him. The younger son tried to do it by demanding his inheritance and spending it how he wanted to. The older son tries to control his father and his stuff by moral performance, by being good. And the older son falls short because that’s not what gets you in. As Tim Keller points out, the humble are in, the proud are out. It’s not about good versus bad, it’s about humble versus proud.

You’ve probably noticed that this story is left unfinished. We’re left standing outside of the party with the father pleading with the older son and waiting to see what he will do. 

Remember that this parable is in response to the Pharisees grumbling about sinners. So what do you think Jesus is trying to teach the Pharisees with it? Are they, like the older brother, going to refuse to go inside because they feel like God owes them something? Are they going to reject the feast because the younger son, those tax collectors, are there? 

What about you? Who do you relate to in this story? The younger son who goes off in search of himself and finds out that the world has nothing to offer him and comes back humble and broken?

Or are you like the older son, who’s been good and God should be impressed with your obedience? You deserve his blessings. You deserve to get all the things that you want. And you’re mad at those who get God’s grace and don’t deserve it. 

Personally, I am like that older brother. I can become arrogant over my goodness, failing to recognize that I am a sinner too, that I have wandered from the father, that I need his mercy every bit as much as the younger son.

Our key truth for today is that we need to repent of self-righteousness. We need to recognize that so much of our obedience to God is an attempt to control him and to get stuff from him. 

Today as you go, I want you to spend time in repentance for doing good things out of an effort to control God. Out of obeying to get stuff from him. Ask God to work in your heart, so that you love him and obey him so that you can get him. Because we must repent of our self righteousness.